COVID-19: Private offices in India’s capital ordered shut; Kejriwal rules out lockdown

New Delhi: Private offices in India’s national capital Delhi have been ordered shut and employees will work from home, Indian media said, quoting a government order.

The decision was taken by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) meeting headed by Delhi Lieutenant General Anil Baijal and attended by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Till now, offices had been asked to function with half their employees in office. Government offices in the city are working with 50 per cent attendance.

Those exempted from the new rule include private banks, offices providing essential services, insurance companies, pharma companies, microfinance companies, lawyers’ offices and courier services.

On Monday, Delhi shut restaurants and bars and said only takeaways and home delivery would be allowed.

Earlier, Kejriwal ruled out lockdown in the city. Speaking to reporters, CM Kejriwal said: “We are expecting that the city would report somewhere around 20,000-22,000 new COVID-19 cases in Delhi. The positivity rate has been around 24-25 per cent for the past two days. We are enforcing strict restrictions like night curfew in Delhi out of compulsion.”

The Chief Minister and Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jai visited LNJP hospital to take stock of preparation to combat the spread of COVID-19 in the city.

He further said that most cases of COVID-19 during the third wave are showing mild symptoms unlike the second wave, which was caused by the life-taking Delta variant. Omicron variant of COVID-19 is less virulent but highly contagious, he added.

Talking about the COVID-19 patients admitted to the LNJP hospital, he said, “Out of the 136 patients, 130 came to the hospital for getting treatment of other diseases and contracted the virus incidentally.”

He further added, “Delhi has the capacity to set up 37,000 beds with 11,000 ICU beds.”

The Delhi CM requested the federal Government representatives, who attended the DDMA meeting, to enforce restrictions in the NCR region also.

The Delhi government, meanwhile, directed all hospitals to ensure timely management of hospital admissions as per the protocol amid the surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths in the capital city.

Delhi has so far reported 70 COVID deaths this month including 17 deaths consecutively for two days.

“Medical directors and medical superintendents of all the hospitals are directed to issue necessary directions to all the concerned to put in place prompt and appropriate systems in their hospitals to ensure compliance of timely management of hospital admission as per the protocol, proper treatment protocol, satisfactory levels of patient care and analysis of COVID-19 deaths”, reads the order from the Director General of Health Services, Delhi government.

The Delhi government has also directed that all COVID-19 positive patients admitted with comorbidities or patients admitted with other serous diseases who turned out to be positive are duly attended to by the concerned specialist and due attention is given to them.

Of the 70 deaths reported this month, most of the cases had comorbidities such as cancer, heart and liver disease.

Of the total 46 deaths reported from January 5 to 9, 34 had comorbidities such as cancer, heart and liver disease. As per the data, 21 people with comorbidities got infected with Covid 19 after admission in hospitals. Of the total deaths, 32 patients were admitted into the ICU ward of the hospital during this period.